FIRE, ROCK, AND SEA 35 



Island, where the South Atlantic and the Indian and Antarctic 

 Oceans meet. In places this gigantic ridge rises to a height of 

 nearly two miles above the ocean floor, though the restless 

 ocean waves roll a mile or more above its peaks. Only in a few 

 places do the higher portions break the surface — at the Azores^ 

 at lonely St. PauFs Rocks near the equator, and at Tristan da 

 Cunha, Gough Island, and the Bouvet Islands in the South 

 Atlantic. We do not know its full extent. It may even continue 

 northward across the little known depths of the cold Arctic 

 basin to the shores of Russia. 



This mighty chain, wider by far even than the Andes, di- 

 vides the Atlantic Oceans into eastern and western basins. 

 Those who follow Wegener believe that it was left behind 

 when the continents separated, a submarine remnant of the 

 old connection between the Old and the New Worlds. A 

 newer but equally fascinating proposal has recently been ad- 

 vanced by J. P. Rothe, who believes that the mid-Atlantic 

 Ridge is really the old submerged Atlantic coastline of Africa 

 and Europe, now sunk beneath the waves. The western basin 

 is thus the true ocean, while the eastern basin is really part of 

 the sunken mainland. 



The marked resemblance of the outline of the Atlantic 

 coasts of North and South America to the Atlantic edge of 

 Africa give support to Wegener's theory; but the American 

 coast follows the outline of the mid-Atlantic Ridge just as 

 closely, so that, if a continental drift has occurred it may just 

 as well have been over the shorter distance between the Ridge 

 and the American shores. The fact that so many of the sub- 

 marine earthquakes of the Atlantic originate in the Ridge 

 is in favor of this, because it is a characteristic of continental 

 edges. Rothe also points out that the minor ridges and 

 basins of the eastern Atlantic look remarkably like continua- 

 tions of the structure of the African continent. Older ideas 

 that the entire Atlantic floor rests on a layer of granite, similar 



